Amber is a kind of organic gem, and its ecological and scientific values attract increasing attentions. Amber is the fossil form of plant resins. This paper reviews the types and the geohistorical distribution of modern and extinct resin-producing plants. Modern resin-producing plants include conifers and many families of angiosperms. Amber produced by modern conifers such as Araucariaceae can be traced to the late Triassic and early Jurassic; however, the most abundant records are from the middle Cretaceous to Miocene. From Eocene onwards, ambers from angiosperms became dominant in deposits. The extinct resin-producing plants include cordaitaleans and medullosan seed ferns which flourished in the Carboniferous and Permian, as well as several groups of extinct coniferous gymnosperms which appeared from the Carboniferous onwards. The most ancient amber is from late Carboniferous strata (ca. 320 Ma in age). Amber contains abundant plant and animal fossils, which provide valuable materials for the study of evolutionary history of organisms on the Earth.